Statewide Iowa — The U.S. government is going to start buying three BILLION dollars of meat, dairy and produce from farmers, to supply food banks. The announcement came after Vice President Mike Pence heard sobering assessments of the farm economy during a forum in West Des Moines on Friday.
Senator Chuck Grassley says farmers are losing a lot of money.
(As above) “Things aren’t very good out there on the farm,” Grassley said.
Senator Joni Ernst says farmers from corner to corner of the state are impacted.
(As above) “Hearing the distress in the voice coming from our beef cattle producers, our dairy farmers, our egg and poultry farmers, especially our hog farmers,” Ernst says, “even those folks engaged in row crops and biofuels like ethanol.”
American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall says farmers are experiencing a perfect storm with a pandemic in the middle of a trade war with China.
(As above) “We had high hopes and now we’re wondering whether or not the president’s going to be able to keep their feet to the fire and make them come good on the commitments of buying $40 billion worth of agricultural products,” Duvall said.
Duvall and both of Iowa’s U.S. senators also called for an investigation of allegations that meat packers are engaged in price fixing.
